Saturday, November 3, 2007

BNCOC Graduation

BNCOC Class 08-01 for the new Armed Forces of Liberia graduated (186 soldiers) on Friday, November 2nd, 2007 at Camp Ware (near Careysburg, Liberia). The guest speaker at the graduation was SGM Martin Doxey from the European Command in Stuttgart. The four week program is considered a "qualifying" course or prerequisite for promotion as a non-commissioned officer in the AFL. Students get training similar to the U.S. Army Warrior Leader' Course (what used to be called PLDC). Of the 186 graduates, 18 will continue on to the Officer Candidate School that begins at the Barclay Training Center in Monrovia on Monday, November 5th, 2007. The OCS candidates will complete a six week course to become commissioned officers for the new AFL. Of this group, 127 have been at Camp Ware since July when they started the basic training course. Today is the first time they get to depart Camp Ware for good. Naturally, after more than four months in an initial entry training environment, they were quite happy to move on to permanent assignment at EBK.